The world that we live in is not the only world. No, there are countless worlds, which exist side by side. Though mostly the truth of these worlds goes unseen. Long ago man worshiped fire, and those who could command it. Fire, which first came to us from one of these worlds, was but one of the many gods and daemons which man would come to worship, to command, and to draw power from… but nothing is without a cost. The power of the gods would be no exception to this rule, a rule that man would come to learn over and over again. As fire held the risk of being burned, of consuming all that you held dear, so to did other gods demand their toll. Some required offerings, sacrifice, or other forms of worship. While others desired to possess those who called upon them, to enter the world of man. Though many only wished to feed upon those who had the strength to summon them. Such is the world of magic… which lies in the shadows of our own.

When I was born, I died… but then I wasn’t no more. My GranMa says I was a Miracle. But I knows what really happened. My mother gave up her life for mines. See, she died just after she gave birth to me, just before I came back, just before I started crying. But that’s how it’s always been for me. It seems, anytime I gain something, its only cause someone else has lost something. I’s supposed to have some power, only I ain’t never know what it is, and I sure’s can’t control it. Thing is though, I get these dreams, and they always be true. The things they say is happening, always be happening… one way or another. Only thing is, I don’t never know how. My father been gone bout a month now. But in my dream he be back, returned to me. Only I cant let him leave, on a count of how he left and all. Ain’t no one gonna understand how he be back, and he don’t even know where he gone. But I do know, when he come back, someone else be coming soon after, someone I gotta meet. That’s when I finally gets my Power, when it finally comes to me. My name be Anton Marcus Lacroix, and this is the story of the day I became a Wuja… that’s like a witch but it ain’t.

My father been back for less than a day, and I been doing everything in my power to keep him in the house. He be a little confused, so it ain’t been too hard. But he been riding into me something hard. Its like all his quiet feelings, he been hold back all these years, just start pouring out of him. I knew he had ill feelings towards me for a long time. He blame me for my mama’s death. He ain’t never say it, he ain’t never say much before now, but I knows it just the same. Sides it’s true, if I ain’t never been born my Mama still be alive. But that was her choice, that’s what I believe, and I ain’t never let nobody take that from her or me. It was something my Mama did for me, the only thing she could do, the only gift she ever had a chance to give me. So I ain’t never gonna feel bad about it. I hear her voice sometimes… she’s sad, but happy too. She talk to me when I have them dreams I have… like being back in the womb, that’s what it feel like. Anyway, he been saying all kinds of stuff about how I was a curse, and how I ruin everything around me… that I’m the only one that ever manages to end up right side up behind my schemes and such. Of course, he ain’t all wrong about that, but hearing it, hearing him say it with such disdain, that been a little tough. He want me to take him cross town right now, but I got someplace to be. Not like I can take him to do what he wanna do anyway, since he gotta stay inside for now.  At least til I figure something out. But I can’t deal with this right now, its bout enough.

“I got some place to be now,” Anton said to his father, who continued to rail into him without pause for reply. Anton was dressed in a nice shirt and tie, with a dark vest. He was putting on a tweed long coat and wide brimmed hat, which had a black and white peppered pattern… like the snow on an old black and white TV set. The effect seemed to create an optical illusion of sorts, framing in the exposed chocolate colored skin of his face, to which the eyes were drawn, looking for something solid to focus on. Most of his dad’s clothes had already been given away to charity, and the old man was wearing an old pair of dress slacks and matching jacket, no shirt. For some reason, he was up on a fold away ladder, but Anton didn’t have time to figure why. Anton was on the other side of the dining table by the time he came down, on his way to the front door. “Listen, I have to meet someone. I can feels him coming. Look, I was told, when you came back, I was gonna get my Power. Cause I’m a Miracle, that’s why you’s back from the dead.” With that revelation, Anton’s father shut dead silent, as Anton pulled up the collar on his coat. At this point only a triangular wedge of Anton’s face was visible, and when he tugged on the front of the curled brim hat, Anton vanished from the room.

“Where you at? Are you still there boy? … Anton… Anton…” his father called out, confused and disoriented by the series of events and revelations which had unfolded before him. He was only now realizing what he had been seeing, what made him come down from the ladder had been his minds inability to process Anton vanishing before his eyes. But what had truly set him aback, was the revelation of his own death. He was now trying to pull together his memories to make sense of it, but…